For Some Reason AP and ABC "News" Cannot Even Guess At, Overdose Deaths In the US Plummeted in 2025

I wonder what could have caused this.

US overdose deaths fell through most of 2025, federal data reveals

U.S. overdose deaths fell through the most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades

NEW YORK -- U.S. overdose deaths fell through most of last year, suggesting a lasting improvement in an epidemic that had been worsening for decades.

Federal data released Wednesday showed that overdose deaths have been falling for more than two years -- the longest drop in decades -- but also that the decline was slowing.

And the monthly death toll is still not back to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone where it was before the current overdose epidemic struck decades ago, said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends.

"Overall I think this continues to be encouraging, especially since we're seeing declines almost across the nation," he said.

Overdose deaths began steadily climbing in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths from heroin and -- more recently -- illicit fentanyl. Deaths peaked nearly 110,000 in 2022, fell a little in 2023 and then plummeted 27% in 2024, to around 80,000. That was the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

...

Researchers cannot yet say with confidence why deaths have gone down. Experts have offered multiple possible explanations: increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, expanded addiction treatment, shifts in how people use drugs, and the growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.

Apparently it's just impossible that stopping fentanyl imports and deporting Tren de Aragua drug-dealers contributed to the decline. It's not even worth a mention.

By the way, note that overdoses shot up during Fauci's (and Tucker Carlson's) shutdowns. More deaths that can be laid at their feet.

Two other theories recently joined the list....

In a paper published last week in the journal Science, University of Maryland researchers point to the drug supply. They say regulatory changes in China a few years ago appear to have diminished the availability of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.

Their argument is based partly on information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which last year reported that the purity -- and dangerous potency -- of fentanyl rose early in the COVID-19 pandemic but fell after 2022. It suggests it became harder to make fentanyl and its potency was diluted.

One piece of evidence for that: More U.S.-based Reddit users reported a fentanyl "drought" in 2023.

The authors connect that to signs that the Chinese government -- at the urging of U.S. officials -- took steps in 2023 to clamp down on the selling of substances used to make drugs. Information is limited on exactly what the Chinese government did, and the paper is a bit speculative, but "we thought we could make a case," said Peter Reuter, one of the authors.

Oh, so it is possible that US government action is responsible for part of the decline -- but only those steps taken by Biden.

Another mystery: Why did US serious crime rates fallen by unprecedented levels in 2025?

Must be something Biden did.

The U.S. is on pace for the largest one-year drop in murders the nation has ever recorded, according to an analysis by crime stats expert Jeff Asher.

The big picture: The decline in killings is part of a broader decrease in violent crime following the COVID-era spike. Mass killings in the U.S. also fell in 2025, reaching their lowest level since 2006.

The Real-Time Crime Index, which compiles data from 570 law enforcement agencies, shows a nearly a 20% decline in murders this year compared with the same period in 2024.
The database, which Asher used in his analysis, does not consider manslaughter, self-defense, negligence, or "accidental killings" for the statistics, according to its online glossary.
The database's statistics are currently available through October. The FBI will not release official 2025 violent crime data until sometime next year, though RTCI estimates have historically tracked closely with federal figures.
Other major crime categories measured by the index were also down nationwide and across locations of all population sizes, including motor vehicle thefts (23.2%), aggravated assaults (7.5%) and robbery (18.3%).

By the numbers: New York City and Memphis recorded nearly a 20% drop in murders compared with 2024, and Chicago saw them fall almost 28%.

New Orleans saw a decline of 7.5%, while Los Angeles County recorded murders dropping by nearly 19%.

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State of play: President Trump has prioritized cracking down on violent crime in his second term, though there is no clear evidence linking his policies to the decline. Crime rates have been declining since 2021, according to data from both the RTCI and FBI.

LOL, sure. Definitely cite the fake FBI crime figures -- which do not include most blue cities crimes, because they refuse to report them. And we know blue cities routinely cook their crime figures.

Also note the deceptiveness of this statement. Crime didn't just decline in 2025 -- it plunged by 20%.

So the fact that it's been (allegedly) merely "declining" for a few years does nothing to explain the huge fall we saw in one year, when Trump took office again.

But Experts!

Trust the media:

posted by Ace at 01:30 PM

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